


This Fading Hour of Silent Dreams

by rhoen



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Infinite Tsukuyomi, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 07:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12677073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhoen/pseuds/rhoen
Summary: Losing everything you've ever longed for hurts far more than never having had it in the first place.





	This Fading Hour of Silent Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much awintersrose for the title! Oh man, titles are _hard_. You saved me  <3
> 
> I'm currently taking part in NaNoWriMo, so everything's on hold until that's done, but I thought I'd dig out an unposted fic anyway, just to have something new out there.

Genma doesn't understand where he is at first. It's clearly a dream, and yet the details are too vivid, too tangible, for it to be a figment of his own imagination. He lies, naked, beneath soft sheets as warm morning sunlight soaks through the curtains, spilling over the large, comfortable bed he’s is nestled in, and his own hair tickles his neck as his heart hammers in his chest. He doesn't brush it away, though. He's too afraid to move, fearful he will disturb the sleeping figure barely inches from him. His face turned towards Genma, Raidou looks so at peace, so serene, it causes sudden tears to sting Genma's eyes. He doesn't understand where he is or what's happening, but he never wants it to end.

Untroubled in a way Genma has never seen him in all their years of friendship or on all the missions they've done together when they’ve slept close enough for Genma to watch him with longing, Raidou shifts in his sleep, gravitating towards Genma. He smiles, breaking Genma's heart, and wakes just enough to murmur against Genma's neck as he slots their bodies together. In this cruel, perfect dream, it feels as if they were made for each other.

"I was dreaming of you."

Genma loves and fears and doesn't understand what is happening to him. His heart in his mouth, he tries to stutter out a shaky response. "Y-you were?"

"Mhm," Raidou confirms, pressing even closer as he starts to wake properly. A hand runs over Genma's hip, moving up over his back to embrace him, and Genma shivers as he realises that, somehow, his body remembers this. A touch he's never experienced is so familiar in this dream-like state that he can predict where Raidou's hand will settle with unerring accuracy, and knows before it happens that Raidou's fingers will play with the tips of his hair, and his own fingers will bite into Raidou's hip in answer. He knows this. His body remembers. Easy familiarity that has built over years floods his senses in moments, and he gives a pleading gasp, at the mercy of unnameable joy and desire as Raidou's lips graze his jawline and everything he knows will happen comes true.

"You wanted forget-me-nots."

The words make as little sense as the world around him, but Genma gives up on caring when Raidou shift in his hips with purpose, causing longing to flare within Genma, searing through every nerve ending and leaving him breathless. He's never had this, not really. Rationally he knows that he and Raidou have never shared anything more than friendship, and yet in this altered reality Genma can feel all the years of loving and being loved that he's lived though, and knows there are so many more yet to come. Raidou wants him the way he’s always longed to be wanted, and Genma is free to reciprocate.

There's no reason to want to wake up from this dream. Genma pours his heart and soul into every touch he gives, letting those he receives wash away all doubts and memories he has of a life without Raidou at his side.

For the first time in his life, Genma loves, and is truly loved in return.

 

The world is cold and colourless, devoid of life. As he's pulled back into it, almost choking on the sensation, Genma feels alone in a way he's never experienced before. The misery of it cuts him to his core. He feels bereft – sick, almost – and longs to return to that world of warmth and loving tenderness.

The world that is gone, though, a cruel trick of genjutsu. It never existed. Genma is speechless, horrified, when he turns to take in his surroundings and sees Raidou right there next to him. He has to look away. Ashamed of himself and the world his own longing created, Genma can't bring himself to speak.

Instead he walks away. He has to. He turns his attention outwards. He doesn't want to remember the warmth and belonging of the dream he's just left behind. He can't. Instead, he takes in the wreckage all around, and picks through it, looking for those in need of help in an attempt to ignore his own distress.

 

An acrid taste fills his mouth, and Raidou has to clench his eyes shut in an attempt to fight back tears as the dream fades. His heart is breaking, shattering into a million little pieces that cut and pierce him, and he draws a shuddering breath, on the edge of collapse as he tries to weather the onslaught. His hands curling into fists in an attempt to still the trembling raking his body.

"Shit," he hears someone breathe, barely three feet from where he stands. Raidou can't guess what dream they've been torn from. He wonders if it was anything like his own. He pities them if it was.

 _Genma_ , he thinks, the jagged shards of loss shifting and tearing at him as he mourns something he never really had. _Genma_...

He can't breathe. Raidou knows he has to move, but the loss is too acute, too devastating. He thinks of the kiss Genma gave him in that dream world to welcome him home, and the way his expression had softened when Raidou stepped over the threshold, his gaze full of love and boundless devotion – love and devotion Raidou was free to return. He thinks of the quiet, peaceful world he hadn't realised he'd wanted, and all it would entail. He wants it back more than he’s ever wanted anything before. He wants Genma.

He can't have Genma, though, or live in that world. It doesn't exist, and never will. There is no happily ever after in reality, and, even if there was, a shinobi with so much blood on his hands doesn't deserve it. He certainly doesn’t deserve love, and why would Genma want him anyway?

Opening his eyes despite the still lingering threat of tears, Raidou barely registers Genma’s presence  – this world’s Genma, the one who is his friend and nothing more, and who knows nothing of the longing unfurling within Raidou’s chest and consuming him – before he forces himself move. He has to keep moving forward, trying to piece himself together enough to disguise the hurt. He has a duty to perform, and an emotional, broken shinobi is no use to anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://namiashiraidou.tumblr.com) \- I don't bite :D


End file.
